Four-Wheeled Future: Is It Time for You to Give Up Your Outmoded Misconceptions and Consider Buying a Diesel Car? (Short Answer: Yes)

Although we were born and raised in Detroit, the unshakable love we have for cars is still somewhat remarkable. This is because we came of age in the Motor City in the late 1970s and early 1980s, an era widely recognized as the absolute nadir of the domestic automobile. And while there was stiff competition, none better represented America’s vehicular rock bottom than the suite of diesel-engined monstrosities produced from 1978 to 1985 by General Motors. These sedans, coupes, hatchbacks, and bustle-backs were not only unreliable, underpowered, overwrought, filthy, and flatulent but also known for their jankily discordant exhaust note, which sounded like an engine blowing up. And that was fitting, since these engines actually blew up with remarkable frequency. Do you want to know what killed America’s interest in diesel power? These motors.

But all that is changing. “A lot of the misconceptions are old,” Christi Landy, manager of small- and electric-car marketing for G.M.’s Chevrolet division, told us. “The noisy, smelly type of things, those are from the last generation of diesels—from back in the 70s and 80s. This new generation is clean diesel.” These engines emit 90 percent less acid-rain-causing nitrogen oxides and smoldering black particulate manner than their squalid predecessors; they achieve, as all diesel engines do, about 30 percent better fuel economy than a similarly sized gasoline-powered engine; and they no longer sound like a World War I mortar detonating in a musket-ball factory. All of which is great news, because Chevy is about to install one here in its best-selling Cruze.

After years of ceding the American oil-burning-passenger-car market to a handful of German marques (Mercedes and VW chief among them), Chevy—along with a number of other domestic and international manufacturers—is preparing to cast its rods back into our viscous black pond. (Diesel is thicker than gasoline.) We recently told you about Chrysler’s plans to stuff a diesel in its delightful Grand Cherokee, Audi’s decision to earmark certain A6/A7/A8 TDIs for U.S. car buyers, and BMW’s news that it would be equipping 3-Series wagons with four-cylinder turbo-diesels. But with rumors that our beloved Cadillac might drop a diesel into its new CTS and/or ATS and that Mercedes might build one into its next-generation C-Class—not to mention the official confirmation that diesels are coming from Mazda, in its curvaceous new midsize 6 SkyActiv, and from BMW, in its 535d—we consider this a full-blown trend.

Why is this happening now? Diesel is now seen as being a win-win. “What we’re finding,” Landy told us, “is that we have a great combination for customers: great fuel efficiency—really the efficiency of a hybrid—with the smooth performance of a much larger engine.” Chevy hasn’t finished E.P.A. testing yet, but it is expecting 42 m.p.g. on the highway. And insiders know that, with diesels—unlike with gasoline, or even hybrids—car owners very often get better fuel economy than what’s on the E.P.A. label.

Efficiency aside, as in any industry, the real business behind diesel is . . . business. “What we’ve seen is that this segment has very slow, but steady growth,” BMW’s North American head of product planning and strategy, Paul Ferraiolo, told us. “Some cars, some powertrains, you see ups and downs based on fuel prices or the economy. What we’ve see with diesels has been unusual: small but consistent growth for us and our competitors.” In fact, the latest data shows that the diesel-car market has increased fivefold since 2007, and that it was up by more than 25 percent last year, nearly double the growth in the market overall.

Although they’re often a bit costlier than traditional gas-powered models, we’re big fans of diesels, not only because they’re much more efficient but because they’re much more durable and tractable: delivering more of the kind of usable power that most Americans desire. (Not to bore you with a bunch of engineering falderal, but diesels provide a lot of torque at low engine revs—like, as soon as you touch the gas pedal—and torque is the stuff that makes you feel like you’re going fast.)

So why isn’t everyone buying a diesel right now? “Those powertrains are underachieving because they have so much baggage to overcome,” Paul Ferraiolo told us. “That takes time.” Still, market research shows that diesel-car buyers tend to be better educated and have higher household incomes than traditional gasoline-car buyers. And since growth in diesel popularity is fueled (sorry!) by early adopters and word of mouth, if you get into one of the current or upcoming crop of diesel models shown in the delightful slide show below, you will prove yourself to be just the kind of erudite, in-the-know, cutting-edge consumer we already knew you were.

Photos:Four-Wheeled Future: Is It Time for You to Give Up Your Outmoded Misconceptions and Consider Buying a Diesel Car? (Short Answer: Yes)

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Audi A6/A7 TDI

Last fall, we picked the Audi A7 as the car we’d buy if we had to buy a new car. With the announcement of the imminent arrival of the diesel version, we’d like to revise our choice and select the TDI instead.